Intimate Partner Abuse and Homicide During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Situational Action Theory Analysis

• Published date: 01 May 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241245882
• Author: Kyle Treiber
• Date: 01 May 2024

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241245882

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2024, Vol. 40(2) 290 –323

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862241245882

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Article

Intimate Partner Abuse

and Homicide During the

COVID-19 Pandemic: A

Situational Action Theory

Analysis

Kyle Treiber1

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home restrictions significantly changed

people’s daily lives around the world. Opportunity and strain theories predict

this would lead to an increase in intimate partner abuse (IPA), including intimate

partner homicide (IPH). This paper applies an alternative theoretical framework—

situational action theory (SAT)—to explain mixed findings regarding changes in IPA

and unexpected findings regarding (a lack of) changes in IPH. It is argued that SAT

may contribute to explaining the impact of stay-at-home restrictions on IPA and IPH

in three important ways:

1. by addressing the fact that motivation is necessary but not sufficient for

explaining action and better specifying how motivation translates into IPA

and IPH;

2. by addressing the fact that people perceive different alternatives for action

and better specifying why some people come to see IPA and IPH as acceptable

action alternatives;

3. by addressing the fact that exposure affects people differently and better

specifying how stay-at-home restrictions shaped people’s activity fields and, in

turn, their perceptions and action choices.

Keywords

situational action theory, intimate partner abuse, femicide, perception-choice

process, activity field

1University of Cambridge, UK

Corresponding Author:

Kyle Treiber, Associate Professor in Neurocriminology, Institute of Criminology, University of

Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK.

Email: kht25@cam.ac.uk

1245882CCJXXX10.1177/10439862241245882Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeTreiber

research-article2024

Treiber 291

Introduction

During the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home restrictions significantly changed peo-

ple’s daily lives worldwide. Two prominent criminological perspectives predicted this

would lead to an increase in all forms of intimate partner abuse (IPA), including inti-

mate partner homicide (IPH). Opportunity theories argue that crime happens when the

right conditions converge—a willing offender, a potential target, and a lack of con-

trols; this perspective predicted IPA would increase under stay-at-home restrictions

because these conditions would arise more often when partners spent more time

together isolated from moderating influences. Strain theories argue that crime happens

when people experience stressors and cope through criminal means; this perspective

predicted IPA would increase during stay-at-home restrictions because this created

new and exacerbated existing sources of strain between partners and limited their

means of coping. While increases in IPA during the pandemic period (roughly 2020-

2022) have been widely reported and evocatively described as a “shadow pandemic”

(UN Women, 2020), the empirical landscape is complex and the overall picture unclear

in terms of substantive changes in IPA, as well as in opportunities and strains. In

particular, the expectation that IPH would increase in line with, arguably as an

extension of, increases in other forms of IPA has not been borne out in the global data

(Aebi et al., 2021; Miller et al., 2022). This paper applies an alternative theoretical

framework—situational action theory (SAT)—to address shortcomings in the expla-

nations proffered by opportunity and strain perspectives and take better account of

differences in people, settings, and their interaction in explaining mixed findings

regarding changes in IPA during the pandemic period, and unexpected findings regard-

ing (a lack of) changes in IPH.

IPA During the Pandemic

Intimate Partner Abuse

When stay-at-home restrictions were implemented during the pandemic period, there

was little concrete understanding of how the resulting changes in people’s activity

fields—the constellation of settings in which they spend their time during a given

period (Wikström et al., 2012)—would affect their well-being and behavior. An impor-

tant area of concern was the impact on crime. IPA is one of the most widespread forms

of crime in the home. IPA refers to a range of malicious behaviors between romantic

and/or sexual partners, including physical, sexual, and psychological mistreatment

(Breiding et al., 2015; UN General Assembly, 1993). To allow for both clarity and

nuance, in this paper “IPA” is used in reference to all forms of intimate partner mis-

treatment collectively apart from intimate partner homicide (“IPH”), while “IPP”

refers specifically to psychological abuse (e.g., gaslighting, threats, and coercion), and

“ IPV” specifically to nonlethal physical abuse.

Most studies focus on IPA perpetrated by males against females, and thus IPA is

included as a significant form of violence against women, with approximately one in

292 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 40(2)

three women experiencing IPA in their lifetime (see, for example, Sardinha et al., 2022;

White et al., 2024; World Health Organization, 2021). Comparable rates and similar

predictors have been reported for male victimization, raising questions about the dis-

tinctiveness of IPA between the sexes, as well as the reliability of IPA data (Barton-

Crosby, 2017; Chan, 2011; Hamberger & Larsen, 2015; Hamby, 2014; Hardesty &

Ogolsky, 2020; Krahé et al., 2005; Larsen & Hamberger, 2015; Spencer et al., 2022).

This is not an issue with which this paper will grapple, as it suggests the causes of IPA

are the same regardless of the sex of those involved, that is, the same factors will be

implicated even if they may be more frequently associated with people of a particular

sex. The same is held to be true for IPH where sex differences are much starker; females

are at much greater risk of being killed by an intimate partner than males: around 80%

of IPH victims are female, and an intimate partner is implicated in 40% of female and

only 5% of male homicides (Spencer & Stith, 2020; Stöckl et al., 2013).

An important conceptual question is whether forms of IPA lie along a continuum,

sharing similar causes, with more severe behaviors reflecting more aggravated forms,

or if they represent distinct phenomenon with different causes. The former view domi-

nates, placing IPH at one extreme of a continuum beginning with psychological abuse

and escalating into physical violence (Campbell et al., 2007; Cunha & Goncalves,

2016; Dugan et al., 2003; Matias et al., 2020; Reckdenwald & Parker, 2012; Spencer

& Stith, 2020). IPA is often a precursor for IPH; around 75% of IPH cases feature a

history of IPA (Campbell et al., 2007; Cunha & Goncalves, 2016; Matias et al., 2020;

Spencer & Stith, 2020), and a recent meta-analysis (Spencer & Stith, 2020) found fac-

tors distinguishing IPV and IPH differed more in degree than in kind. One factor that

consistently distinguishes IPH is the perpetrator’s willingness to use lethal force (e.g.,

strangulation) or access to a deadly weapon (especially a firearm) (Campbell et al.,

2007; Cunha & Goncalves, 2016; Matias et al., 2020; Spencer & Stith, 2020). Several

studies also identify acute events triggering escalation of IPA to IPH, for example, the

ending of the relationship or a partner’s infidelity (Aebi et al., 2021; Aguilar Ruiz

et al., 2023; Cunha & Goncalves, 2016; Sheehan et al., 2015). These features of IPH

will be considered in relation to the impact of stay-at-home restrictions on intimate

partner dynamics.

(How) Did IPA Change During the Pandemic Period?

Although a wave of publications appeared in the initial wake of the pandemic predicting

a “shadow pandemic” (UN Women, 2020), based on preliminary and anecdotal evi-

dence, as a wider perspective and evidence base has developed, the picture remains

unclear (Miller et al., 2022). Many studies report increases in IPA, but those encompass-

ing more data and accounting for more confounds suggest these increases are smaller

than predicted (Piquero et al., 2021; Thiel et al., 2022; Uzoho et al., 2023) and vary sig-

nificantly, with IPA increasing in some contexts (e.g., Evcili & Demirel, 2022; Hamadani

et al., 2020; Keilholtz et al., 2023; Romito et al., 2022; Soeiro et al., 2023), remaining

unchanged in some contexts (e.g., Chiaramonte et al., 2022; Miller et al., 2022; Tierolf